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Embedded with fierce action and quirky comedy, this animated tale delves into the adventures of the legendary Persian pirate, Sinbad, who finds himself on a quest to find the magical and legendary Book of Peace, a mysterious artifact that Eris, the Greek wicked goddess of chaos, has ultimately framed him for stealing!
If he fails on this quest, his childhood friend Prince Proteus of Syracuse will take Sindbad's death penalty, while Eris gains a desired foothold of power in the world of mortals. Can Sinbad recover the book and return with it before his best friend makes the ultimate sacrifice for him?

Storyline

This animated action adventure follows Sinbad and his pirate crew attempt to steal the magical "Book of Peace" while it travels to Syracuse, Sicily, protected by Proteus. Proteus was once Sinbad's best friend as a child and he tells him if it ever meant anything he can prove it.

Sinbad tries to steal the book anyway, but is prevented when Cetus attacks the ship. The two work together to fight off Cetus and for a moment reaffirm their bond. Just when it seems the beast is defeated, Sinbad is dragged off the ship. Proteus goes to save Sinbad, but he is stopped by his crew.

Drawn underwater by Cetus, Sinbad is saved by Eris, the beautiful Goddess of Discord, who offers him any boon he desires in exchange for the Book of Peace. Sinbad and his crew go to Syracuse to steal the Book, but leave without doing so.

Anticipating this, Eris impersonates Sinbad and steals the Book. Sinbad is sentenced to death, whereupon Proteus sends Sinbad to retrieve the Book instead, placing himself as hostage, and Proteus' fiancée Marina goes to make sure that Sinbad succeeds.

To prevent them from succeeding, Eris sends a group of mythical sirens, who entrance and seduce the men aboard Sinbad's ship with their hypnotic singing voices, but do not affect Marina, who pilots the ship to safety. Eris later sends a Roc which captures Marina, but she is rescued by Sinbad.

After these and other incidents, Sinbad and Marina enter Eris' realm, where she reveals that her plan was to maneuver Proteus into Sinbad's place, leaving Syracuse without an heir, and agrees to surrender the Book of Peace only if Sinbad truthfully tells whether he will return to Syracuse to accept blame and be executed.

She gives him her word that she will honour the deal, making it unbreakable even for a god. When he answers that he will return, Eris calls him a liar, and returns him and Marina to the mortal world. Ashamed, Sinbad admits Eris is right, truly believing deep down that he is a selfish liar.

In Syracuse, the time allotted to Sinbad has elapsed. Proteus readies himself to be beheaded, but at the last minute, Sinbad appears and takes his place. An enraged Eris appears suddenly and saves Sinbad by shattering the executioner's sword to pieces.

Sinbad, shocked, realizes that this was still part of her test and that he has beaten her by proving his answer to be true after all. Eris is furious but cannot go back on her word and so reluctantly gives the Book to Sinbad before vanishing.
With the Book restored to Syracuse, Sinbad and his crew leave Syracuse on another voyage, leaving Marina behind. Proteus sees that Marina has fallen deeply in love with Sinbad, so he releases her from their engagement and sends her to join Sinbad's ship, before sailing away.

Continuity When Sinbad and Marina are sliding on the shield, it is strapped to Sinbad's back in the beginning. Throughout the rest, the straps are completely gone.

Continuity After the first fight, Proteus' shirt collar is ripped. When he follows Sinbad into the ship's cabin, his shirt is perfect again.

Audio/Video Mismatch At the end of the movie when Sinbad is telling Marena that it is 'very, very dangerous', his mouth movements do not match up with his words.

Miscellaneous The movie is set between 733 BC and 212 BC. Yet, one of Sinbad's sailors is is wearing glasses. The earliest precursor of this optical device was not invented until 1300 AD.

Trivia:

Brad Pitt and Catherine Zeta-Jones did not meet until the premiere.

This movie lost $125 million, which partially led to the sale of PDI/DreamWorks, the DreamWorks SKG animation department, being renamed DreamWorks Animation SKG in 2004.

the last Hand Drawn Animated film from Dreamworks.

Spike, Sinbad's dog, was more popular in a screen test than Sinbad himself, so the filmmakers added in seven new Spike scenes before the film was released.

Michelle Pfeiffer and Catherine Zeta-Jones did not meet until the morning they were scheduled to appear on a daytime talk show to promote the film.

In all original legend and all previous film adaptations, Sinbad is Muslim and comes from Baghdad sometime during that city's Golden Age (AD 762-1258). In this version, Sinbad seems to be of the Greek polytheist religion. His friend Proteus is the Greek prince of Sicily, which places the story sometime between 733 BC and 212 BC.

The original storyline for the film was to focus on the first voyage of Sinbad, then it would be followed by 6 sequels focusing on the other six voyages he had. However after the box-office disappointment of The Road to El Dorado (2000), Jeffrey Katzenberg decided on having one movie, which didn't just focus on the one voyage.

Initially, Russell Crowe signed up for the title role, but in the autumn of 2001 he was replaced by Brad Pitt because Crowe was too busy working on another project.

Michelle Pfeiffer took on the role of the villain in the film at the request of her children.

In the scene in which the entire crew, including Spike, is losing their lunch after traveling at top speeds you can hear a man say, "Hey, where did he get the carrot?" According to the filmmakers, that line was a joke someone said during story production that made everyone groan so much that they decided to put it in the movie.

In order to get a U rating (same as an American G) the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) requires that 12 seconds featuring a head-butt had to be removed. An uncut 12 years and upwards rating would be the lowest that would allow the head-butt to be kept in.

According to an article in Wired, this is the "first Hollywood production created entirely on Linux". Animators used more than 250 HP workstations, loaded with Red Hat Linux and custom animation software, to render the film.

This was Dreamworks last 2-D animated film. After the release of this film, the company only focused on productions of CG animated movies.

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